Women who received chemotherapy were 24 per cent more likely to develop diabetes within two years of their breast cancer diagnosis than those without the cancer to develop diabetes within that time frame. That diminished to an 8 per cent increased risk after 10 years.

Breast cancer survivors who didn’t have chemotherapy, on the other hand, were more likely to develop the disease later, with a 7 per cent increased risk after two years that rose to 21 per cent after 10 years.

“(That was) kind of surprising,” Lipscombe said. “You would expect if there were shared risk factors, you would see an increase right throughout.”

The information came from the Ontario Cancer Registry, a database of information on all Ontario residents who have been recently diagnosed with cancer or have died of cancer.

Previous research has shown women with diabetes have a slightly higher risk of getting breast cancer, Lipscombe said, and this study shows the reverse may also be true. The diseases have shared risk factors, including obesity.

The findings suggest breast cancer survivors should talk to their doctor about their risk of developing diabetes based on risk factors, such as obesity and family history.

And “breast cancer survivors should make sure they get screened regularly for diabetes and also make sure that they maintain a healthy weight and a healthy lifestyle to help reduce their risk of diabetes,” she said.

These findings are published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

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